Lately, the business of being N, and of managing relationships with “Distant Buddies,” has been interesting. P, about whom I’ve written a fair amount (Folly), has been having a lot go on in her life, and while I think things are substantively unchanged between us (we still plan to meet, and soon-ish), the earlier frenzy of our relationship has abated twice now, once at my instigation and once at hers. As I said, this seems to have had no impact on the substance of our relationship, which has deepened from where we started (people who e-mailed words and pictures and the like) to something like a bona fide friendship, with a deeply sexual overtone. But it has affected the pace.

Another – I haven’t given her a name, but why not call her “S” – and about whom I’ve written a bit – has been off again/on again since we started some months ago. Lately, we’re on. And it’s fun. But I fucked up with her. Early on, there was real substance to our relationship. She trusted me with some shit in her life, and I listened – well, for the most part. But then I went and wrote this post. In it, I dismissively derided my relationship with her as being “purely sexual,” her as being “laconic.” To be fair, this was just wrong, twice over. I was in such a rush to write about P that I just threw S under the bus in that post. That was thoughtless, inconsiderate. And wrong. And S called me on it. Immediately. Which had the effect of making her, among other things, not want to fuck me any more. And these distant buddy relationships just don’t work if you don’t both want to fuck one another. Or at least, if you don’t want to pretend that you want to fuck one another (I guess). Anyway, I seem, somehow, to have mostly regained her trust, though I note that we’ve (I have? She has?) mostly stayed away from substantive matters in recent days, even as we’ve ramped up our picture-sending and hot words.

And another, the newest – “K.” Also far away. Also younger. This one wrote just six days ago:

N.,
I have been waffling over sending this email for months now.
I’m normally a quite [sic] observer in the blog world. There are plenty of bloggers with whom I have shared interests, but never before have I been so compelled to tell them as much.
I keep asking myself what makes you different.
Why am I so drawn to you? Drawn to tell you how much I love your words, which I do by the way.
I know I am not the first driven to profess how much your blog turns me on, and I am positive I wont be the last. (By the way, turned on doesn’t begin to describe it.)
What is it about you? Is it that shared sexual desires feel more fundamental somehow? I don’t know. And honestly, I don’t care. This email is long over due and even if you don’t respond it feels good to say hello.
So here goes nothing.
Hello.
And thank you, thank you for every orgasm you have unknowingly been responsible for.

I replied, four hours later:

First off: Thank you for this e-mail. If you’ve been reading my blog and compelled by what I write, you have to know that an e-mail like this is pretty much manna to me.

This e-mail of yours, though, is ultimately a tease – a promising tease, but a tease. I don’t know what turns you on in what I write, I don’t know what you love aboutmy words, I don’t know what you mean by “shared sexual desires”? Who shares them? Which ones? Why did you “waffle” over sending this? What compels you about me? Who are the other bloggers with whom you have shared interests?

I’m glad you said “hello,” but want to know more. Who are you?

(You had to know I wouldn’t not respond. That’s not me….)

Since then, we’ve been back and forth several times. She clearly has been studying, reading up on just how I like to be seduced, how I like to seduce. And she’s doing it expertly. I’ve learned a lot about her – ranging from her job to how she cums to what her boyfriend likes and doesn’t like. Two days ago, I figured out the town from which she reads my blog (it may be where she lives; I’m not sure) and the pages she’s viewed, and the times she’s been on. I’ve seen just a few teasing pictures, I’ve heard her voice, reading an e-mail, reading a couple of super-hot stories. Her engagement with e-mail is sporadic – at least, more sporadic than is mine, typically, but she makes up for that with her responsiveness, her compliance. Everything I’ve asked of her, she’s responded to with enthusiasm, and then some, if a bit slower than I might prefer. She’s under-promised, over-delivered. She’s hot, and she presents her body artistically, simultaneously teasing and revealing. I’m looking forward to where we go together.

She’s unlike the others in that she has a significant other, a guy who owes me a solid favor after the show I had her put on two nights ago (I asked her to play with herself for his visual entertainment). And the one she’s doing for him tonight (tonight, he gets a strip show and a lap dance). I have the sense that while our relationship is/will be sexually explicit and intense, there will be a certain – difference – to that intensity that’s informed by the constant presence of her boyfriend in the dialogue.

There are others – three women with whom I’ve had more or fewer interactions of greater or lesser frequency and intimacy. And honestly, I’m just not the kind of guy who easily doesn’tlike people – I like those women, but the interactions we’ve had, for whatever reason, haven’t blossomed in intensity in quite the way each of these three has.

With my circumstances, long-distance buddies are the best type to have (though certainly I am gratified to have found my local Sir!). Rider is a very good LDB of long standing, we are kindred spirits in kink. And I have a couple other buddies with whom I chat fairly regularly that add some spice to life 🙂

Generally, they seek me out. But that’s not a fair description: in most instances, it’s developed organically. But if the question is, who sent the first message? I think generally it’s not me (technically, it’s not “I,” but that just sounds weird).